Our Love to Admire

Background

Since Interpol's contract with Matador had expired, it was initially speculated that Interpol would sign with Interscope Records. However, drummer Sam Fogarino rejected these claims as "pure speculation". It was later confirmed that the band would sign to a major label, though they chose Capitol over Interscope.

The album was produced by Rich Costey, who is notable for his work with Muse on Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations, as well as Franz Ferdinand on You Could Have It So Much Better.

"Pioneer to the Falls" featured as the closing music track in Smallville season 7, episode 10, "Persona".

Sound

According to band members, Our Love to Admire is more "expressive" than the group's previous efforts.

We had keyboards on from the start which we've never done before. It's like a fifth member. There's a lot more texture, and interesting sounds, there's definitely progression and growth.

Prior to the album's release, Billboard offered the following brief descriptions of some of the band's new songs:

First single "The Heinrich Maneuver" is a peppy kiss-off to an ex-love now residing on the opposite coast and hits radio May 7; the band has been playing it of late during its just-concluded Canadian tour. The band is on familiar footing with tracks like the tense "No I in Threesome" ("Maybe it's time we give something new a try," frontman Paul Banks sings) and the relentless "Mammoth," which are loaded with Daniel Kessler's simple, repeated guitar riffs and Carlos D's powerful bass underpinnings. There are some new sonic experiments; the album begins with the funereal, nearly six-minute "Pioneer to the Falls," featuring Jim Morrison-esque crooning from Banks, and wraps with another unusually ambient piece, "The Lighthouse." Hints of soul creep in on the spaced-out "Rest My Chemistry" ("I haven't slept for two days / I've bathed in nothing but sweat," Banks sings) and "Pace Is the Trick."

Leaks

Sometime in March 2007, an album called Mammoth, attributed to Interpol, appeared on P2P networks. However, the album was actually a renamed copy of Exit Decades, recorded by Swedish band Cut City. Due to some similarities in style between those two bands, this "fake leak" was quite convincing to some listeners. There was another false leak—a renamed version of Sam's Town by the Killers with "The Heinrich Maneuver" included on it.

The song "The Heinrich Maneuver" was streamed in its entirety from AOL's music blog, Spinner, a few days before the single's official release. MP3 rips of this stream were widely circulated through the internet via P2P clients. On June 16, 2007, "The Scale", "All Fired Up" and "Rest My Chemistry" were leaked through MySpace in low quality audio. On June 20 "Pioneer to the Falls" was released on Pitchfork Media, as a stream. On June 21, 2007, the complete album was leaked onto P2P networks.

Critical reception

Our Love To Admire received mostly positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 70/100, based on 37 professional critic reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Playlouder gave it all five stars and said, "The band have colonised the rich turf at the intersection of meticulously structured mope-rock and free-flowing three-chord pop, where moments of resignation cosy up alongside twinkling hopes for the future like Winehouse to the sauce." Hot Press gave it a favorable review and said that the album "makes for hugely rewarding listening."

Uncut gave the album four stars out of five and called it "a majestic, grandiose, machine-tooled album, subtly orchestrated with gothic pianos and doomy organs." URB also gave it four stars out of five and called it "the type of strung-out confession that fills the junkie mold of classic Bright Lights Interpol--a welcomed revival after the wayward Antics." Now likewise gave the album four stars out of five and said that "In terms of writing and production, this may be Interpol at their best." Billboard gave it a favorable review and said that the band "retains its flair for dramatic images and ominous guitar lines on its major-label debut, but with producer/ mixer Rich Costey onboard, these signatures uncoil into more complex soundscapes." BBC Music gave it a positive review and said that Interpol are "tighter than a laser-guided smart bomb, the beats are more swingy, and Carlos D's bass and keys are even more expressive and swooning." The Boston Globe likewise gave it a favorable review and said, "The foreboding melancholy of 'Turn on the Bright Lights' has eroded into a sound that's less idiosyncratic; by design or accident, that broad-brush aesthetic coincides with the band's move from an indie label (Matador) to a major one (Capitol)." Q and Mojo both gave the album a score of four stars out of five.

The Phoenix gave the album three stars out of four and called it "well worth exploring". The A.V. Club gave it a B and said it "delivers exactly what's promised, which for fans will be exactly enough." Under the Radar gave the album seven stars out of ten and said it "isn't going to change many minds--those who already liked the band will find plenty to please, and vice versa." No Ripcord also gave it seven stars and said the album's lesser tracks "seem to have placed a greater emphasis on texture than melody or even rhythm, which is arguably the band’s most potent weapon. As a whole, though, Sam Fogarino will be satisfied." Paste gave the album three-and-a-half stars out of five and said that it "may not be [the band's] Sgt. Pepper, but it's still filled with morbidly catchy treats." The Village Voice gave it a positive review and said that "Somehow the band manages to sound insincere and gorgeous at the same time." Prefix Magazine also gave it a positive review and said it "sounds more or less like the last two [CDs], and that's its biggest problem."

Other reviews are average, mixed or negative: Yahoo! Music UK gave the album six stars out of ten and said of Interpol: "Crucially, it seems their ability to write a magisterially moving song such as "NYC" or "Obstacle No 1", both from their debut, seems to have abandoned them. In fairness, sonically speaking, this is their best effort yet." Blender gave it three stars out of five and also said of Interpol: "In fleshing out the contours of a sound once slavishly indebted to early-'80s titans like JD and the Smiths, they've nuanced the moods Banks moons over. Awesome for him. Only so-so for us." Spin gave it a score of six out of ten and called it "oddly reined in" and "a transitional record by a band not yet willing to completely let go of the past." The Guardian gave it three stars out of five and called it "undoubtedly impressive: impressive enough, in fact, to counter the fact that Interpol are pretty light on ideas of their own."

The Austin Chronicle gave the album two stars out of five and said it "could use more Carlos D.'s low-end bass/keyboard flourishes. Perhaps it's time to turn the lights out." Tiny Mix Tapes gave it one-and-a-half stars out of five and said it "isn’t even a contractual obligation to push off without care." Stylus Magazine gave it a D saying that "they ape New Order's "Movement," surely that combo's most static and dullest album. Dengler and rather good drummer Sam Fogarino don't get many chances to shine, letting guitarist Daniel Kessler create the kind of textures that often get mistaken for progress."

Commercial performance

The album has scored Interpol's best chart positions in their career, debuting inside the top five of the UK & US album charts, reaching number-three on the European Albums Chart and selling over 154,000 copies of their album in its first week worldwide. The album debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200, selling 73,000 copies, but then dropped to #26 the next week with 22,000 copies. After 10 weeks, the album dropped off the chart, but by January 2009 it had sold 209,000 copies. It's notable that while the band's third album has sold far fewer copies in the U.S. than their previous two did - the others have each moved close to 500,000 units - Our Love to Admire is still Interpol's highest-charting disc. It has also sold 518,000 copies worldwide.

Track listing

All tracks written by Interpol.

1. "Pioneer to the Falls" (Live at Astoria)
2. "NARC" (Live at Astoria)
3. "The Heinrich Maneuver" (Live at Astoria)
4. "Mammoth" (Live at Astoria)
5. "Slow Hands" (Live at Astoria)
6. "Evil" (Live at Astoria)
7. "The Heinrich Maneuver" (Music Video)
8. "No I in Threesome" (Music Video)

Personnel

Charts